by Edrei Cullen
It was going to take a little while for life at Hedgeberry to return entirely to normal, of course. Mr Frollick was still a little afraid of water, although he was getting better. And Ms Wheelbarrow was still having problems whispering to leaves, never mind trees. And a few of the Flitterwigs of flight were still having trouble with their wings. But Samuel Happenstance was certain that, with patience, all would be restored to full health within the week, (even though he, himself, still couldn’t fly).
The Keys were now invisible and untouchable again, encased in their glass boxes and held safely for their modern Keepers; Max, Charlie, Samantha, Gloria and Humphrey in secret spots, so secret that they can’t even be mentioned here.
Don Posiblemente, almost fully restored (although, actually, he still couldn’t remember how to open the Flitterwig Files) and unutterably proud of the Clearheart, had explained that a new team—her team—was now required to protect these Magical objects, and pass their history into the future. The power of the Magicals had been surpassed. Flitterwiggery was entering a whole new dimension. A place where humans had a place. And the Library of Memories proudly stored these facts.
Saul and Ulnus were back in prison, under a much lighter sentence however. For the fact that at the eleventh hour, both mercenary Flitterwigs had understood that they had to protect their race, had served them well at their retrial. So Gloria still wasn’t Ella’s biggest fan, but she had found a new respect for the Clearheart and for herself and the Dryad Flitterwigs, being the new Keeper of the Green Key and all.
Ella wondered if she would ever see Thomas of Gommoronahl again or the Elf Queen. All she had received after that last most wonderful meeting was a note from Wrinkles. Thank you, well done and congratulations, he’d written. And another, carved in stone from Thomas. Arnold and Mabel are duly imprisoned. All is safe and well in Gommoronahl. Goodbye, we love you, it read.
She wondered what would become of the Duke back in Magus. She wondered how poor old Granny and Grandpa were coping with the reappearance of the extended Montgomery family. It had required some serious Bamboozlement to set Granny’s mind to rest on that front! But Manna, Rosemary’s overjoyed mother, had taken care of that. There really seemed no need to give Granny a heart attack at her age!
Ella was plucked from her meanderings by someone pulling up a chair beside her.
‘Mind if I sit here?’ Max asked, sitting down anyway.
‘Sure,’ said Ella, trying ever so hard not to blush. She poked at her porridge.
‘Want to go skateboarding later today sometime?’ he asked, trying his best to pretend everyone else at the table wasn’t listening to him.
Samantha smirked and giggled into her orange juice. Ella gave her a look. Charlie nudged Sam with his elbow and she tipped sideways off her chair. Humphrey harrumphed, settled his head against the wall and closed his eyes in idle contemplation.
‘Maybe,’ said Ella shyly.
Mr Montgomery, Ella’s father, would never quite fathom what he was supposed to have witnessed (or didn’t actually witness) in the Highlands of Scotland or at Hedgeberry that strange day, or at Carnival at the end of the school year.
From the Carnival bleachers, Ms Wheelbarrow and Samuel Happenstance and Don Posiblemente watched Mr Montgomery closely. They were fully recovered and eager to observe how the New Order would work out. It was going to be quite a process, discovering how best to introduce Magic to the human race again. It would probably be an almost impossible feat, for most human beings can’t see Magic at work, at all. But they were entranced by the gentleness of Rosemary Montgomery and her sons as they watched the world unfold again before their eyes, after so many years in oblivion.
All Mr Montgomery saw when he watched Carnival, standing with his arms wrapped around his newly restored family, (who were all still incredibly stiff and a little weak from ten years frozen in a cocoon of amber), was many, many children. All of them a little odd, dressed in wonderful colours, each representing their kind (whatever that meant), doing very little that made any sense at all.
Although, when a representative of the Goblin Flitterwig clan ‘apparently’ ran the full 300 acres of Hedgeberry’s grounds in under five minutes, Mr Montgomery was more than impressed at the child’s speed. He would have to check out the footwear that boy wore. He could make a fortune with it. And when a representative of the Marshlin Flitterwigs swam underwater for over an hour, he was equally impressed, but then suspected there was a little cheating going on. And when a Dryad Flitterwig made a row of trees intertwine their boughs and create a latticework wall 200 metres long, he had to scratch his head for a long while.
Wheelbarrow did her best to ease Mr Montgomery into the Magical world that day, as his wife watched gently, a quiet smile on her face. She showed him the colourful stalls of pumpkinberries (tiny pumpkins the size of blueberries) and lettuce-apples and tomato clovers (tiny tomatoes that bloom in buds of three). She encouraged him to admire bushes sprouting both tiny blue cherries and huge purple strawberries. And when Ella and her friends took centre stage to perform their grand finale act, she decided it might be better to have him temporarily Freezified altogether!
For Ella, Humphrey, Charlie, Samantha, Gloria and Max made their entrance on the back of a great wind ball—a veritable mini-tornado, created by Humphrey with Charlie, spinning his feet on the top to keep it rolling—while Ella, Gloria and Sam flew above them, their wings outstretched. Charlie drew petals and leaves and fruit into the whipping wonder as he passed, until it was a ball of so many colours and shapes, the crowd was speechless.
Jumping off the ball of wind, Humphrey guided it up above a clump of trees. With Gloria conducting, the trees threw the ball out of their branches from one to the other. The crowd clapped but their clapping reached whole new heights when Ella pulled a teardrop from her pocket and made the wind ball Stretchify and Shrinkify at will. Then Max stepped forward, and turned the wind into a ball of fire. Then turned it back again.
The crowd breathed in amazement and then gasped as it came to rest. People stepped forward, to see what had happened to the poor vegetation within the fiery ball. This is when Samantha flew over and twirled in the centre of it, amongst the charred petals and burnt cabbages. She healed each and every one of them in time for Charlie to send them back to where they’d come from with a grateful ‘thank you’.
It was the first time in centuries that different types of Flitterwigs had performed an act at Carnival together, marking another historic turn in Flitterwiggery. How much the world has come on, Ella’s mother thought to herself as she watched her daughter proudly from the bleachers.
And even if Mr Montgomery had been watching the children’s performance, it wouldn’t have mattered that he couldn’t actually see what was going on. It didn’t matter at all.
For his daughter had come to him and shown him what a wonderful person she was. His wife and sons were returned to him. How, quite, he would never know. But he had to presume there was something bigger than life that made it possible, something to do with his charming daughter, Ella.
And these miracles were nothing short of magical, he thought to himself as he watched his wife, her hair flaring about her pointy ears, delighted to see who her daughter had become. Yes. For the rest of his life, even after all he’d been through, he would be a believer.
And if Mr Montgomery can believe in magic, then there’s really no reason why the rest of us can’t!
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Text copyright © Edrei Cullen, 2011.
Illustrations by Gregory Roge
rs, copyright © Scholastic Australia, 2011.
Cover concept by Madeline Smith.
Cover copyright © Scholastic Australia, 2011.
First published by Scholastic Press, an imprint of Scholastic Australia in 2011.
This electronic edition published by Scholastic Australia Pty Limited in 2012.
E-PUB/MOBI eISBN 978-1-921-98902-5
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